BROKEN RUDDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 50, 28 February 1940, Page 7

BROKEN RUDDER.

AIRMAN'S ORDEAL.

Remarkable Flight After Fight

With German.

MACHINE PILOTED HOME.

RUGBY. Februarv 27

A remarkable flight lias been made by the pilot of a coastal command aeroplane, who, after three hours, brought his machine with a broken rudder back over the North Sea and made a safe landing at his base.

The aircraft was on a reconnaissance patrol toward the coast of Norway when the tail was damaged in a fight with a Dornier. Bullets wrecked the hinge of one of the double rudders.

The pilot pulled out of the dive only a few feet above the water. Limping away he made a good target, but the Dornier had taken its own share of punishment and flew off badly damaged.

After the fight the British pilot could not keep his machine flying straight. It vibrated violently froiii end to end and developed a corkscrew motion. He pulled open the emergency hatch above his head and the navigator and wireless operator opened the cabin floor. All three had parachutes and life jackets ready.

Steering by varying the revolutions of the two engines, aiul manipulating the ailerons and the remaining half of the rudder, the pilot coaxed the aircraft back toward the base on the cast coast. Very soon it was dark and the pilot decided that his chances of making a safe landing were so small as to be negligible, so he prepared the crew to "bail out" by parachute as soon as they saw they were over the land.

After nearly two hours the wireless operator, who had not been able to establish contact with the base succeeded in doing so. He asked the aircraft's position and in a few moments the answer came back and the crew were astonished to learn that they were over the Irish Sea. half-way between the Cumberland coast and the Isle of Man.

With the wireless again in operation they "homed" back to the east coast. When the damaged tail of the machine was inspected it was found that in addition to the broken rudder a fracture had started across the main tailplane and crept two-thirds of the way across.